Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Gov. Tom Corbett is doing as he prepares to unveil his state budget proposal.

Gov. Corbett has threatened to use state funding for the public schools as leverage to get his way on other issues. In fact, he and his staff have said that legislative success on extreme ideas - like privatizing state services and attacking public employee pensions - is “inextricably linked” to increases in public school funding.

These are false choices. And every Pennsylvanian should warn legislators not to be fooled by them.

Political threats won’t help Pennsylvania’s students learn, and politicians playing political let’s-make-a-deal games won’t protect students from class-size increases and program cuts.

There is a school funding crisis in Pennsylvania’s public schools. It didn’t need to happen. And we need to address that crisis with sustainable, long-term investments, not rhetoric and short-term solutions that will cost us more in the long run.

Since Tom Corbett became governor, he has cut nearly $1 billion from the public

schools. In the wake of those unprecedented cuts, 70 percent of school districts have increased class sizes, 44 percent have cut programs that work for students, 35 percent have slashed tutoring programs, and the jobs of 20,000 educators have been eliminated.

If the governor doesn’t make restoring these funding cuts a priority, this crisis will get even worse.

These are the facts. This is a true crisis. And solving it should be the governor’s top priority.

Unfortunately, solving the school funding crisis is not the governor’s top priority. Instead, Gov. Corbett is playing politics. He is using the crisis in our schools to leverage support for issues that won’t help our Commonwealth or our students.

He is demanding that the state lottery and state liquor stores be privatized. He is attacking public employee pensions with plans that won’t reduce costs.

These are bad ideas. And threatening to hold up public school funding until he gets these initiatives done makes them even worse.

Isn’t it better public policy to close corporate tax loopholes? Isn’t it wiser to end the big-money tax breaks that are costing Pennsylvanians hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues? Doesn’t it make more sense to make funding the public schools a top priority?

I think so – and so do most Pennsylvanians.

Finding solutions to the school funding crisis is urgent. And our elected officials can solve it, if they make it a priority.

If legislators focus on what’s important, they can solve this crisis, they can balance the state budget, and they can pay for the vital services all Pennsylvanians need.

But if politicians allow the governor to distract them from these important issues, if they fall for the false choices he has proposed, and if they let him place his controversial political gamesmanship above the true needs of Pennsylvanians, they will waste valuable time and resources.

And, as the governor plays political games, Pennsylvania’s students risk missing out on the public education they deserve. The governor may believe he has all the time in the world to play politics. But our students don’t have time to waste.

The first step toward addressing the school funding crisis is making it a priority – and putting students before politics.

If enough Pennsylvanians tell the governor to do that, maybe he will start to listen.

Maybe then the governor will learn that using public school students as a political bargaining chip is a bad idea for public school students, for taxpayers, and for all Pennsylvanians who are looking to him for leadership, foresight, and good judgment – and finding very little indeed.

Mike Crossey is president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest public school teachers' union.